


In Like A Lion

by ScarletCorvid



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: BSC100, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-07 09:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21455842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletCorvid/pseuds/ScarletCorvid
Summary: March the 9th started out like any other day in Stoneybrook. After it, nothing will ever be the same again as the town faces the unimaginable: a mass shooting at Stoneybrook Middle School. Told through the perspectives of the Baby-Sitters club members, their family, friends, and classmates as they try to cope with the events unfolding around them...or just survive them.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 13





	1. Kristy Thomas

Chapter One - Kristy Thomas

March 9th  
9:36 am  
Stoneybrook, Connecticut

“Thank you, Shawna, that was an...interesting take on the Electoral College,” Mrs. Gonzalez forced a smile. “Dori, it’s your turn next.”

Interesting was a nice way to put it. At least Shawna had been able to keep our attention. Dori Wallingford got three sentences into her presentation before everyone seemed to be getting bored. I know I was. I was sitting behind Claudia Kishi, watching her doodle in her notebook. She’s such an amazing artist, you’d think the bunnies were about to start wriggling their noses.

I looked out the window at the gray morning. I liked most of my classes well enough, but this round of a class called Short Takes was about politics. Parts of it were really interesting, other parts of it, not so much. The projects due at the end of the month would be more interesting than the themes we were presenting today, expressing our opinions on different parts of the American political system.

I gave my theme second in the class. No one was surprised. Talking is part of what makes me Kristy Thomas, President of the Baby-Sitters Club and coach of Kristy’s Krushers. Some people think I have a big mouth, and maybe they’re right. But I think speaking your mind is important.

Outside our classroom, the trees were waving their branches excitedly. It made me think of something my mother always said this time of year, ‘in like a lion, out like a lamb.’ It’s a way of saying that March is windy. Though sometimes it goes the other way. I didn’t think it was coming in like a lamb this year, but it was nice watching the leafless branches bob. 

Pop.

I jumped a little, turning away from the window. What was that? 

Pop. Pop. POP!

I glanced towards the back of the classroom, half expecting to see that Alan Gray had brought some firecrackers to use in his presentation. He’s about that ridiculous. To him, it would be worth it even though he’d get a month’s worth of detention for it, or worse. But Alan looked just as surprised as the rest of us.

Dori had stopped reading her theme, looking at our teacher. 

Pop. Poppoppoppop. 

Mrs. Gonzalez stood up from her desk, looking towards the door. “Class, stay in your seats. I’m going to go see if I can find out what all the commotion is about.” 

“Should…” Dori glanced at her chair, then back at Mrs. Gonzalez. 

Alan Gray stood up, his face white as milk. “I’ll go with you, Mrs. Gonzalez.” 

“It’s not necessary,” She smiled kindly at Alan, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’ll be back in five minutes or less. Everyone just sit here quietly until then.” 

POP! POP!

The sounds were much closer now and each one sent a shiver through my spine. I’d never heard those kinds of sounds before, but I knew what they weren’t, and that was fireworks. This was something else totally. And Mrs. Gonzalez was striding towards the door, towards that sound. Her head was held high, but I spotted a tiny detail that made me worry. 

Her hands were shaking.

Our teacher opened the door, left the classroom, and quickly shut the door behind her. Everyone was completely silent, looking at each other nervously. 

“I think…” Alan spoke up, talking much quieter than he normally did. “Those were gunshots.” 

“No way!” I exclaimed, angry that he’d even think such a thing was possible. And even more angry that I had been wondering the same thing. “How can you even tell?”

“My grandpa hunts,” He shrugged. 

“Well, I think…” 

POP!POP!POP!

Each sound was a sharp crack this time, and it sounded like they were right outside the door. I didn’t get a chance to finish my thought. Everything seemed to happen all at once after that. The door flew open and Mrs. Gonzlaez staggered in. The entire left arm and shoulder of the pale yellow sweater she’d been wearing that moment was now stained bright red. 

“Class, I need everyone to go to the front of the room,” Her face was pale and I thought any moment she might faint. “Quickly!”

“What’s going on?” Shawna Riverson started to cry. 

“Be quiet!” Mrs. Gonzalez said firmly, ushering everyone up from their seats with her good arm. The other dangled at her side, blood dripping from her fingers. I stared at the drops hitting the faded white linoleum for several seconds before getting to my feet and hurrying up to the blackboard with everyone else.

“There’s a shooter in the building,” Mrs. Gonalez explained once we were all clustered at the front of the room. “We’re going to be very quiet.” 

“What if he comes in?” Stacey McGill spoke up. “Then what do we do?”

In any other case, I would have been the one to speak up and take charge. But right now, I was so scared that I couldn’t think straight. Maybe it was easier for Stacey to think clearly. She’s from New York City, where bad things happen all the time. Stoneybrook isn’t New York. It’s supposed to be safe.

“If he comes in, then I want you all to run,” Our teacher’s voice wobbled with pain, one hand clutching her bloody shoulder. “Run and find somewhere to hide, if you can. If you can’t, try to get out of the building. But we should stay here for now...help...help will come soon.”

She didn’t sound too sure of that, and honestly, neither was I. I edged closer to Stacey and Claudia, glad to have at least two of the BSC members there with me. I saw Stacey and Claudia hold hands. I took Claud’s other hand and squeezed it tight. She turned slightly towards me, tears in her eyes.

We grew up together, across the street from each other for so many years. Even after I moved when Mom remarried, we’d stayed close because of The Baby-Sitters Club. Of all the things we thought we might experience together, I’m sure she never thought of this one either.

The Baby-Sitters club. My closest friends in the world. Where were they now? Mary Anne, Dawn, Mallory, Jessi, Abbey, Logan. They were all in this school with us. I closed my eyes, hoping that none of the shots had come from their classrooms. I wanted to see my friends again. My family too. I wanted to see my family again so much. 

Would I?


	2. Stacey McGill

9:44 am  
Stoneybrook, Connecticut

Stacey McGill

When you grow up in New York City, you hear a lot of bad things. There’s always murder on the local news, and sometimes there are crimes that are almost too terrible to speak of. When I was living in New York, it was just part of life. My parents taught me how to be safe, or at least, as safe as I could be in the biggest city in the world. And the strange thing is, I always felt safe.

Stoneybrook is another place I always felt safe. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of a single murder since we moved back here. There have been some robberies, but those are usually cleared up fairly soon. I’m proud to say the Baby-Sitters Club has had a hand in some of them. The solving, of course, not the actual committing of the crime.

As we stood huddled together at the front of the classroom, I tried to understand how we’d gone from our normal second-period class and Dori’s boring speech to hearing gunshots. Before a few minutes ago, I’d never heard a gunshot before. I spent the first twelve years of my life in New York City, and I still visit my Dad there often. But I didn’t hear a gunshot until Stoneybrook and a normal classroom.

“I’m so scared,” Claudia Kishi barely whispered into my ear. Her hand was as tight as a vice on mine. I was holding back just as tightly. 

“We’ll be okay,” I murmured. 

I wanted to comfort my best friend, but it also felt a little like lying. I didn’t know if we were going to be okay. Who had ever thought something like this could happen here in Stoneybrook? Those thoughts were just in the back of my mind, though. Most of me focused on trying to hear whatever I could. 

Out in the hallway, there was a bang, a scream, and another round of gunshots. These were the closest yet. Right outside the door. 

“Be prepared to run if he comes in,” Mrs. Gonzalez told us in a hushed voice. Her face was pale and covered in sweat, but the blood had stopped flowing from where she’d been shot in the shoulder.

My teacher. Shot. 

The shot was right outside the door, so loud that it made my ears ring. Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to run if we got a chance. Oh please, God, let us have a chance. All those times I thought the world was ending...finding out I had diabetes, my parent’s divorce, my former best friend turning on me...I never thought it would really end like this. 

Wood splintered as the next shot went straight through the door. Then it was flung open, leaving someone dressed from head to toe in combat fatigues standing there. There were guns and ammo belts hanging off of him, but those barely registered to me. All I could see was the black rifle he was aiming at all of us. 

Beside me, Claudia moaned and squeezed my hand so hard it brought tears to my eyes. Or maybe the tears were because we were all about to die. 

Mrs. Gonzalez lurched up from her desk and stepped forward towards the shooter. “Stop right there!”

Kristy Thomas shoved Claudia hard, who shoved me forward. And suddenly, the whole class moved in a wave towards the other side of the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gunman move closer to Mrs. Gonzalez. 

The doorway was unblocked, and I ran for it, dragging Claudia along with me. Kristy ran past us, then paused in the doorway to grab my hand. We were barely through the classroom door when the gun went off. Someone screamed and there were another three shots in short succession. 

“Don’t look, don’t look!” Claudia shoved me forward again. “Run!” 

But I turned to look over my shoulder. I saw Mrs. Gonzalez on the floor in a pool of blood that was spreading out rapidly. So much blood. It felt like the wind was knocked out of me and I stopped. Dori Wallingford stopped just behind me. Our eyes met for a moment, then all I could see was blood. The sound of the gunshot that had hit Dori made my ears ring.

This time I ran. Claudia was still holding my hand, but I didn’t see Kristy as we charged into the hallway. The class parted, one half going to the left, the other to the right. Behind us, I heard more shots being fired. We joined the group to the left, running as fast as our legs could take us. 

After we turned the corner into a different wing of the building, we slowed down a little. Claudia was shaking badly and clutched my arm. 

“He shot them…” She mumbled, tears falling down her pale cheeks. “What now? What now?”

“We hide,” I replied. 

The shots behind us were coming slower now. Up ahead there were the band and home ec rooms. They both had plenty of closets. Maybe if we could make it that far and find a good place to hide, a door we could barricade...

“Wait!” Claudia shrieked and pulled me back against the wall. 

A group of kids came charging towards us. Several had blood on their clothes. My heart pounded so hard I thought it would explode. 

“He’s got a gun!” A boy who looked young enough to be a sixth-grader yelled to us while he ran past. 

“That way?” I tried to call back, but he was already gone. It didn’t matter, a second later we heard a new round of shots. This time, they were coming from in front of us.

“Oh my Lord,” Claudia whimpered. “There’s...two of them?”

The door to the girls’ room behind us burst open and a pack of seventh-graders ran out. We followed, quickly catching up and blending in among them. Until we could find a place to hide, maybe being a group would be better. If there was any sort of ‘better.’


	3. Ashley Wyeth

Chapter Three

9:46 am  
Stoneybrook, Connecticut

Ashley Wyeth

With spring just around the corner, all I heard the other girls talking about in the hallway was clothing and what they were wearing to the Spring Fling, and if their parents would let them get a two-piece this summer. I don’t understand that. But being popular was never important to me. If you get right down to it, the only thing that’s important to me is my calling as an artist. 

Stereotype would dictate it was the season to draw lots of flowers, nature, baby animals, birth and hope. That’s the line that sets artists apart. If you can see the stereotype line, you can jump over it and head in a different direction. So this spring, I was going to be painting the opposite of spring renewal...soggy paper cups left in a parking lot all winter starting to peek out of the snow. Leaves and branches that are decaying instead of growing again. 

I wondered briefly if I should invite Claudia Kishi to come to the park with me that weekend to seek inspiration in the park, but then quickly decided against it. She’s got her friends. She made the choice between popularity and her calling. I guess she’s still my fellow in art, but I can’t mentor someone who has anyone less than total devotion to the craft. 

It’s okay. She’ll figure out what’s really important in life eventually. In the meantime, my mind was more occupied with getting back to class before the hall monitor squawked at me again. I couldn’t help it if the way the light plays on bricks sometimes caught my eye, or a candy wrapper was left in the hallway in just the right position. It wasn’t like I was stopping to sketch the whole thing out, just take a few seconds to memorize the lines, curves, shadows and highlights for later.

The popping sound seemed to come out of nowhere. I had heard a few funny noises from the other side of the school while coming back from the bathroom, but they’d been so distant I wasn’t sure what they’d been. But these new sounds were so much closer, more defined. 

Then the sounds of feet running down the hallway behind me. I turned to see a group of students running as fast as they could from the eighth-grade classrooms in the wing around the corner. I recognized Kristy Thomas, the leader of the baby-sitters towards the front of the pack. 

“Get out of here!” She yelled, speeding past me. 

Just what on earth was going on here? 

I stared after them, settling my hands on my hips. Another thing I’ve never understood is the need for such tomfoolery. There’s so much to experience and then turn into art, why waste it acting like a kid? And for another thing, why were some of them splattered in red paint?

The sound was so loud that it knocked me off my feet, putting me down on the floor face down. My stomach felt like a hot fist had been driven through it. I closed my eyes against the coolness of the tile for a moment as the pain settled in. Someone walked past me, but when I turned to look all I could see was big black boots.

I rolled over onto my side, pressing my hand to my aching stomach. My shirt felt wet. When I raised my hands, I saw red on my fingers. The same red paint that was on the students who just ran by. But it wasn’t paint. I understood that now.

Oh God, it hurts. My vision blurred and I sank back against the tile. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that pain like this was even possible? I don’t think I’d have believed them anyway. 

The white linoleum beneath my side was spattered with red roses. They were blooming. But the rose closest to me was the one blooming the fastest. Spring flowers. Red roses like that song my Grandma used to sing to me when I was a kid. 

Red roses are red. Green leaves are green. But there was no green today. I was wearing a pink skirt and a light blue top. But those are good colors with red too if you think about it outside the box. And there were a lot of grays now. Everything was fading, getting grayer. Except the roses. 

Gray and roses. So pretty. If only there wasn’t so much hurt. So hurt.

“I...see...every...one…” I whispered into the cold tile. 

Each word hurt like a knife, but then the hurting drifted away. All I could see now was color. So many colors. Some of them I didn’t even know existed. 

The red was the prettiest of all.


	4. Alan Gray

Chapter Four

9:46 am  
Stoneybrook, Connecticut

Alan Gray

When I was ten, we visited my grandparents in Michigan for Thanksgiving and my grandpa took me hunting for the first and last time. Apparently, in the mitten state, it’s a big right of passage to go out and shoot a deer. I didn’t manage to shoot one, or anything else. Except for a tree. My grandpa took down a big buck, and it was just sad. Until it was time to field dress it, then it was just disgusting. I threw up. Something Kristy Thomas can never know. 

I hadn’t thought of that in a long time, but the sounds of gunshots and all the blood in my classroom made me think of it. It’s weird, you’re afraid you’re going to die and suddenly your mind comes up with the most random stuff. 

The man with the gun stood in the center of the classroom, staring at us. I couldn’t tell who it was, because he was wearing a ski mask and black clothes from head to food. Someone had seen a few too many movies. Except in movies, Mrs. Gonzalez wouldn’t be dead and Dori wouldn’t be laying on the floor bleeding. 

It felt like the three longest seconds of my life when he glanced towards the door, debating whether to chase after the half of the class that had left, or deal with us first. I began to back up, slowly but steadily. There was a door that leads into the storage room at the back of the classroom. If we could get in there, then we’d be safe. For a while, at least. Maybe long enough to get him to leave the room. 

And hopefully for the cops to come. With lights, sirens, and big guns of their own. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a few other kids backing up towards the door too. I could hear other gunshots down the hall and the gunman in our classroom looked to the door again. At that moment Shawna Riverson panicked, running towards the back room. His head snapped back towards us at the sound of her footsteps and the gun was raised again at us. 

Suddenly, it felt like I had gotten the worst case of road rash ever on my upper arm. I didn’t think the bullet went in, but my legs buckled anyway. I hit the ground hard, but it didn’t matter. I’d be dead in another second or two. 

A heaviness covered my back, forcing me into the floor. For a moment I thought someone was protecting me, but then I felt the back of my shirt getting wet. Blood. Not mine, but someone else’s. Someone’s blood was getting on me, soaking into my shirt, making my skin feel sticky. 

I wanted to scream or run, but I laid there and closed my eyes. It seemed like it might be my only shot, playing dead. Oh God, I don’t want to be dead for real. I don’t want to go out twitching and suffering like that deer Grandpa shot three years ago. I could smell blood and clamped my teeth together to keep from screaming.

I wet my pants. Normally, I couldn’t think of anything more humiliating that could happen at school. Now it seemed just a thing that happened. (A thing that I hope Kristy Thomas never, never finds out or I’ll never live it down...or get her to go to another dance with me.) All I wanted to do was live. But I didn’t see how that was going to happen.

The gunshots only lasted a few seconds, but it was the longest stretch of time in my entire life. Even longer was the silence that followed. I heard footsteps get closer, and I tried to hold my breath. 

Oh God, he wants to make sure we’re really dead. And now I’m going to be really dead, with wet pants and someone else’s blood all over me. Oh God, if you’re listening, I promise to be less of a screw-up. I promise to give my parents less crap. I promise...I promise...I promise…

Footsteps faded away. No sounds not but some soft crying and moaning around me. 

Slowly, I opened my eyes. Rick Chow was slowly getting up on his hands and knees. There was blood splattered on his shirt, on his face, even in his hair, but he looked alright. Alright as he could be, I guess. Not shot. That was pretty alright. Maybe the only alright that mattered right now. 

“Rick…” I started to struggle out from beneath whoever was on top of me. “He really gone?”

“Alan!” He quickly crawled over me. “You’re alive!” 

He helped move the weight off of my body. I sat up, my ears buzzing from the sounds of the gunshots. I didn’t want to turn around and see who had been on top of me, but I couldn’t help myself. You know how they say something might be disturbing and not for young viewers on TV and you feel like you can’t look away even if it’s going to be terrible? That was how it felt to look over my shoulder.

The kid whose blood was covering my back was definitely dead. His name was Brian. I didn’t know him well, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the fact that my Quick Takes class had turned into something out of a horror movie.

“We gotta lock the door,” I said to Rick, forcing myself to my feet. My legs felt like spaghetti, but I forced them to move forward. 

Rick ran ahead of me and closed the classroom door. “There’s no locks on the door!”

“Then we need to move Mrs. Gonzalez’s desk in front of it.” 

Moving it without looking at our dead teacher was impossible. I tried to focus on the desk, but my vision was blurred with tears. Rick looked just as devastated as I did, but we managed to block the door. 

“Now what?” One of the girls asked, making us both jump. 

Three girls were huddled in the corner, crying. Another boy was sitting against the wall. The girl who spoke was holding her sweater over the wound in Shawna Riverson’s thigh. It had started out white this morning, but now it was bright red. 

“Now...we go into the backroom and barricade that door too.” I glanced at Rick, hoping he’d take the lead. He didn’t seem to be paying attention, staring at our dead teacher and dead classmates. It seemed to be up to me.

“We go in the backroom and barricade the door,” I repeated. “And then we can’t do anything but wait, I guess. The cops will be here soon.”

But they hadn’t gotten there soon enough.


End file.
